Enable - Success Stories - European Club Association

European Club Association chooses Enable for new website

The European Club Association (ECA) is the sole, independent body directly representing football clubs at European level. It replaces the G14 Group and the European Club Forum, both dissolved at the beginning of 2008.

ECA was fully recognized by UEFA and FIFA in a formal memorandum of understanding, which was signed in January 2008. During the 2008-2009 season, ECA represented 137 member clubs, drawn from every one of the 53 national associations within UEFA, right across Europe, and is steered by a fifteen-member Executive Board.

The formation of ECA brings stability to the football family in Europe, clearing the way for all partners—leagues, regulators, players and clubs—to work together in building the future of football in Europe.

Enable Software has been developing highly functional websites and web-based software systems over the past 9 years. With its flexible and scalable content management system (Content Fusion) and a skilled professional services team consisting of business analysts, website designers, software developers, testers, hosting and support staff, Enable delivers high quality solutions in short timescales.

ECA invited Enable to tender for the design and build of their new website in early November 2008. The goal was to launch the site in time for the General Assembly in early February 2009. With this in mind Enable immediately started to work on the preparation of design concepts, knowing that timescales would be very tight and a head start on the design front would be important.

Enable presented their proposal on a Thursday and were appointed by ECA the next day. By Monday an Enable team arrived onsite at ECA headquarters in Geneva to kick-off the requirements analysis and the design brief. The challenge was to develop a feature-rich website to meet the potential future needs of ECA, as well as meeting the immediate needs, in a package that could be launched in just over two months.

By having an Enable team based on-site at ECA for most of the design, planning and specification stages of the project, the process ran smoothly and timescales were met without compromising on functionality.

The website was delivered to ECA for review in the second half of January, following which ECA and Enable worked closely together to achieve a launch in time for the General Assembly in February.

"The website offers so much more than a web presence" commented ECA General Secretary, Michele Centenaro. "We have a live feed of football results, a member directory, and a member login area which we are currently finalising and due to launch to our members in September. Within the login area Enable have provided us with a comprehensive survey tool, discussion forum and document management system. This means we will be able to capture valuable feedback from our members and also debate and discuss important issues online. Our working groups will soon collaborate and share data online as well, which is useful given that members of working groups are scattered across Europe."

Andrew Butt, Managing Director of Enable commented "It has been a pleasure to work with ECA. They have been focused and decisive on requirements and priorities, which is essential in a fast paced project such as this one. We have delivered a website and a set of collaboration modules that will be flexible, future proof, and easy to use. We look forward to working closely with ECA on future projects."